Better than trade deadline day, at least recent trade deadline days. Better than the Stanley Cup final. Hell, better than most of the playoffs.

If someone can trace the genesis of what unfolded on Friday back to the lockout, maybe those 113 days of frustration were worth it.

One day of free agency, folks, had more teams involved than any day other than the entry draft. The bodies were flying, the hearts (in Ottawa) were breaking, the dollars were being generously doled out just days after about $128 million worth of bad contracts were bought out.

NHL teams, as we know, have terribly short memories.

Even the sort-of-saved Arizona Coyotes were spending. Calgary and Edmonton, too. This league may have problems, but quite clearly one of them isn't having enough dollars to get average or good hockey players paid like all-stars.

All the buyouts and free agents even seemed to jolt the trade market to life. After Tyler Seguin went to Dallas in a seven-player swap on Thursday, the Senators pulled off a biggee on Friday with Anaheim to bring sniper Bobby Ryan north.

Dang, can we do this all again next year?

For the Maple Leafs, it all cost GM Dave Nonis a night's sleep and some severe indigestion.

Talk about walking a tightrope without a net. Nonis bought out centre Mikhail Grabovski on Thursday just 60 seconds before the window on compliance buyouts closed, putting Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment on the hook for $14 million.

The idea was to create room to buy a free agent or two, except Nonis had no idea when the clock hit noon on Friday whether he'd get any.

“I could have been left sitting here with nobody and a lot of cap space,” he said. “I didn't have a very good night's sleep, that's for sure.”

It all turned out fine, although, like most teams, the Leafs surely overspent to re-sign centre Tyler Bozak and get grinding winger David Clarkson's name on a seven-year deal. Together, they comprise an annual cap hit of $9.45 million, too much for what they can actually produce.

That's what free agency does for players.

Word is Clarkson may have left even more money on the table, possibly from Edmonton and/or Ottawa.

“If we wanted to get him, we had to go to seven years,” said Nonis.

Later in the day, after a swing and a miss on L.A. defenceman Rob Scuderi, who went back to Pittsburgh, Florida defenceman T.J. Brennan was added on a $600,000 one-way contract — Leaf pro scout Steve Kasper was a big backer — probably ending Mike Kostka's stay as a Leaf.

But all in all, that was a doozy of a risk Nonis took, buying out Grabovski on the hope he'd be able to keep Bozak and add Clarkson to the club's off-season list of roster enhancements that includes goalie Jonathan Bernier and centre David Bolland.

Other teams made similar gambles, notably New Jersey with a big commitment to three-goal scorer Ryane Clowe and Columbus with a seven-year deal for winger Nathan Horton. Boston will spend $6 million hoping Jarome Iginla has something left just four months after he spurned them for Pittsburgh.

Among the more than $320 million spent, there was the feel-good signing of Dominic Moore by the Rangers as he tries to re-enter the NHL after a year spent recovering from the death of his wife following a two-year battle with cancer. Classy rearguard Mike Komisarek, bought out by the Leafs, got a new start in Carolina.

None of it, however, compared to the whirlwind that erupted in Ottawa when it was learned that captain Daniel Alfredsson, despite being given essentially a blank cheque to sign again with the Senators, left for what he perceived to be a better chance to win in Detroit.

Stunned, GM Bryan Murray then pulled the trigger on the Ryan trade, a deal that cost him two good young players and a first-rounder, and one of which Alfredsson was well aware before he decided to join the Wings, a divisional rival of the Sens next season.

“Everything he wanted me to do, we did,” said Murray, who called Alfredsson's decision “devastating.”

“I hope the fans understand.”

They probably won't. At least when Mats Sundin left Toronto for Vancouver, it was with the Leafs waving him goodbye and with some fans sour he'd refused to be traded.

All of Ottawa, by contrast, wanted Alfie back, but he wanted a new team.

On a day when the dollars flew and players eagerly swapped jerseys for new beginnings, this was the severing of what seemed like a rare bond between a player and a team.

A little raw emotion, as it were, on a day of cold and crazy business.

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